By Hyunjoo Jin
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s conservative presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo said on Monday he was willing to discuss sharing more of the cost of stationing the U.S. military in the country, which U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded over the years.
Trump has indicated he wants to make the cost of basing tens of thousands of U.S. troops in South Korea and in Japan a part of negotiations over import tariffs his government has announced against a host of countries, including Asian allies.
South Korea and the United States last agreed to a five-year plan in October to increase by 8.3% to 1.52 trillion won ($1.09 billion) South Korea’s share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. military.
Some 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea as part of efforts to deter nuclear-armed North Korea.
South Korea began shouldering the costs of U.S. deployments, used to fund local labour expenditure, the construction of military installations and other logistics support, in the early 1990s.
“People are nervous if President Trump says let’s raise (South Korea’s) share of the U.S. military in South Korea, and I believe we can raise it to a certain degree,” Kim told a meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce Korea.
It should be more of South Korea’s concern to ensure the U.S. military presence is well maintained in South Korea, he said.
Kim is the candidate for the conservative People Power Party for the June 3 snap presidential election called after Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office over a failed martial law attempt.
South Korean officials have said the cost sharing plan is not up for review and should not be part of the ongoing discussions to address what Trump said was an unfair imbalance in trade and imposed reciprocal duties on Korean exports.
($1 = 1,397.6300 won)
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Jack KimEditing by Ed Davies and Lincoln Feast.)
